Monthly Archives: December 2007

This is for Educational Purposes Only! While I am an ardent advocate of free and open software, I do not recommend pirating or cracking software in anyway. This post is solely for education purposes so that readers may learn what they can.

The application Windows Vista Activation and OEM Information tool allows you to install an OEM (those much less expensive copies of Windows) Vista on your computer without it actually being an OEM system. The especially helpful aspect is that you can pick any of the manufacturers (16 to choose from!) and the program will automatically fill in the correct OEM product key information.

This is helpful for security experts as it something new to learn from. Perhaps someone can design a better Windows Genuine Advantage tool from all this. Or you could just install Linux and learn all that mess behind.

Replacing traditional roofs with gardens is something that I have long advocated. It saves on heating and cooling costs (and therefore reduces pollution) but the plants also help filter the air and improve the building’s aesthetics. I’ve kindly borrowed a few photos from The Grow Spot. These buildings and gardens are amazing. I love it. These would also go well with the vertical gardens. Just imagine massive buildings in New York City someday completely covered with plants. We will have to wonder why we never did it sooner.

Just a quick note: My site is still here, its still me, my ideas haven’t changed. I’m just playing with the themes and trying to find something more interesting, appealing, and functional. I’d be glad to hear any feedback.

Part of the disapproval with electric cars (or electric anything…) is that darn recharge time. I have to leave my laptop plugged in for hours to recharge. I once used an electric push mower but it would quickly die and take all day to recharge. And then there are cars. Hybrids recharge the battery through different means but a true all electric car must be plugged in and takes quite a while to recharge.

MSNBC reports that Toshiba (a leader in seemingly all things electronic) has released a new lithium ion battery capable of recharging to 90% capacity in about 5 minutes. Its also good around 5,000 charges.

Yoshikazu Tsuno / AFP-Getty Images

My view: What about the other 10? I mean, 10% is significant in terms of cars. I really like the potential practical application. Take an electric car with battery good for a 100 miles. At 100 miles (or maybe a little sooner), the driver can pull off at a truck stop, rest station, or restaurant, rests. Then while grabbing a bite to eat, the car can be plugged in and charged by the time the driver returns. Make it like a parking meter and let people swipe their plastic. They pay and then they’re gone. Less pollution on the roads and it makes drivers take more breaks.

The bad side is that this battery won’t be in use till 2010 and that this means more strain on old coal power plants. There maybe fewer gas or diesel cars on the road but there will be more power plants in use. The flip side of this is that we need to switch energy sources anyway and more cars should come with solar cells on top. Perhaps they will once the owners know a more tangible cost involved (its easier to equate your mileage with the money you saved versus the money you spend when you can create your own fuel).

This cool little tool lets you transform your typical Secure Digital memory card into a solid state drive for your computer. By plugging this in an IDE (or what they call PATA now — Parallel ATA) slot, you can load your preferred OS on the card. The best advantage is that solid state drives are quite fast and that they can speed up your whole system. Of course, I could keep a regular hard disk drive around for my regular storage but why dare run your OS of one now?

There are some other inherint advantages. These are going to be quieter and use much less energy. Plus SD cards hold up really well to abuse. To top it all off, you can buy one for only $25. The next idea? Do this with SATA II. Plus buy an Extreme SD card with the fastest read/write speeds you can find. Benchmark the difference.

I have some distinctly mixed feelings on moving to ethanol. Mostly, my regard is to the supply side of the entire issue. Ethanol is primarily produced from corn in the United States. We tend to use most of our corn to feed animals which we later eat (pretty inefficient) or we eat it directly. The problem is that by producing the ethanol from our food source, we’re slowly limiting our food source. Of course, if we bypassed the animal part of the equation, we would save tremendous amounts of grain. Plus, the few animals we do use can be fed from leftovers of the ethanol brewing process. Hmm.. I know there’s quite a bit more to the whole issue. I see this as a mild supplement but never as a replacement to our fuel dilemma.